| Preface | Chapter Two The Planning Process |
On March 1 and 2, 1996, more than 200 residents of Northeastern (NE) Santa Cruz County gathered to talk about the future of their community. Forum co-chairs Bob Barnhill and Jake Kittle described that event this way:
Sonoita & Elgin are at a crossroads. Unlike many communities, we still have time to think and plan for the future. With help from the Sonoran Institute, community residents organized the Sonoita Crossroads Community Forum to provide a meaningful opportunity for all residents to identify local values and to create a citizen-led plan for sensible growth. More than 200 residents participated in this process, reaffirming the importance of this local effort. On Friday night, participants listened to local speakers address past, present, and future trends in the community. On Saturday, participants rolled up their sleeves, listened to each other, and made an earnest attempt to find solutions that would meet the needs and aspirations of Sonoita and Elgin.
The 1996 meeting showed that the people of NE Santa Cruz County share many values (see the list in Appendix C). It also resulted in the formation of a new organization - the Sonoita Crossroads Community Forum was established in October 1996 - but progress toward a plan that would implement our community's vision was slow. Sonoita Crossroads Community Forum President Shel Clark tells how an event early in 1998 helped make it clear that a plan tailored to our area was needed.
Two new commercial developments were proposed. They weren't large - lodges with a handful of rooms each - but had to be reviewed by the Santa Cruz County Board of Adjustment before approval.
The Sonoita Crossroads Community Forum, which was still a new organization in those days, sponsored a meeting at which the developers could present their plans. It was a mess. No one understood the rules by which the proposals would be evaluated (or even if there were rules). There was shouting. Nothing that happened improved the proposals. Lots of hard feelings were generated.
That event made me realize how much our community needed a clear set of guidelines or expectations for future growth. In May 1998, the Forum's Board of Directors decided to take the lead in putting those expectations on paper and getting them adopted into the Santa Cruz County Comprehensive Plan.
This plan summarizes the Sonoita-Elgin community views regarding the policies that should govern the growth we, the citizens of NE Santa Cruz County, anticipate (see the discussion of the area's growth potential below). We believe it provides a sound, defensible policy basis for future land use decisions by defining as clearly as possible what the Sonoita-Elgin community believes constitutes responsible growth in NE Santa Cruz County. It also:
Adoption of this plan will empower the people of NE Santa Cruz County to maintain their quality of life as change occurs. It will also help limit the fiscal impacts of growth on all Santa Cruz County taxpayers.
The plan will also prove useful in less official ways. It will guide local organizations and agencies, including the Elgin Elementary School District and the Sonoita-Elgin Emergency Services, Inc., anticipate future demands for their services and also guide the South East Arizona Grasslands Trust when setting priorities for voluntary land conservation in NE Santa Cruz County. It can also play an educational role by introducing newcomers,including prospective developers, to our community.
Finally, because it puts on paper what so many of us feel about our community, this plan can remind us that we live in a special place and that collectively we must act as responsible stewards.
NE Santa Cruz County is growing at a moderate pace, but regional population and national retirement trends suggest that we should prepare for accelerating growth. Appendix B presents some of the data on which this discussion is based.
Current Population. Applying a reasonable household size estimate to the number of dwellings shown in tax and building permit records suggests that the 2000 population of NE Santa Cruz County was approximately 1,300-1,500.
Current Growth Rate. If the average rate of home construction - 33 units per year between 1994 and 1998 - is an indicator, the population of NE Santa Cruz County is growing at a rate of around 4% per year, which means that in 10 years, its population will increase by about 50%. That is consistent with the Census estimate that the whole county is growing at a rate of about 3.6% per year. Other indicators also suggest a moderate growth rate. Calls to Sonoita-Elgin Emergency Services, Inc. increased at a rate of about 3.5% per year during the late 1990's. Traffic volumes increased more rapidly than other indicators: about 9% per year.
Even the moderate growth rate of the 1990's will challenge local service providers if it continues for a few years. But one of the strongest motivations for adopting this plan was realizing that our community could find itself bearing the costs of a much larger share of the region's growth without benefit of meaningful public discussion.
Regional Growth. The population of Southeast Arizona, including Cochise, Pima, and Santa Cruz Counties, grew by more than 250,000 between 1990 and 2000. Most of that growth was in Pima County, but Santa Cruz County added some 8,700 new residents. This growth reflects a strong regional economy and Arizona's role as a retirement haven. The strength of the economy may vary, but the retirement of the baby boom generation will have a major impact on attractive places throughout the West.
A swell of export-oriented employment in Tucson . . . has been accompanied by the largest surge of population growth in recent memory. The increase of new residents is estimated at more than 50,000 during the past two years. More than 15,000 new nonag jobs were created in 1999.
Arizona's Economy, Winter 2000
Buildout Potential. Buildout is the maximum number of dwellings or square feet of commercial or industrial space that can be built in an area given that area's current zoning and typical development practices. Current zoning places most of NE Santa Cruz County in a General Rural district that allows 180,000 square foot lots as a use-by-right. Without accounting for some small areas zoned for higher densities, this means that approximately 10,000 new lots (see Appendix B for the calculations) could in principle be created in an area where there are fewer than 800 existing homes. Furthermore, this could be done with no public review other than for compliance with the minimum surveying and improvements standards the county sets for subdivision development.
A big bulge of baby boomer retirement is on the way. Nothing will stand in its way, certainly not the economy's inevitable ups and downs.
Atlas of the New West, 1997
This plan has three major parts.
Part I tells the process of civic learning and discussion by which the plan was developed.
Part II presents our local definition of sustainable growth in the form of recommended policies stating how we intend to:
Each policy in Part II begins with a brief statement of the reasons for its inclusion. That explanation is followed by a goal: a general statement of direction. Each goal is accompanied by a list of specific strategies that will be used to achieve it. There are two types of strategies:
Part III proposes for adoption by the Supervisors of Santa Cruz County a Development Code which realizes many of the implementation strategies of Part II. While the goals and implementations there stated express the long-term ambitions of our citizens for NE Santa Cruz County, the Code formulates immediate action based upon this Plan.
We recommend that this plan be adopted as part of the Santa Cruz County Comprehensive Plan. The county is required to have a comprehensive plan by Arizona Revised Statutes (ARS) 11-806 and Laws 1998, Ch. 204, ¤21. ARS 11-829 requires that future land use decisions be consistent with the comprehensive plan.
Passage by the State Legislature of the Growing Smarter Act (Laws 1998, Ch.204, ¤21) mandates planning by each county in Arizona, and thus makes it urgent that our voices be heard in shaping the plan for Santa Cruz County. This Plan includes guides for residential growth in NE Santa Cruz County and we urge the County, while incorporating this Plan into a Comprehensive Plan for Santa Cruz County as a whole, to urge the state government to grant to the county the legislative tools for managing the expected growth in Santa Cruz County.
This plan applies to NE Santa Cruz County, which is outlined on the color map on the following page. The planning area encompasses roughly 200 square miles and follows jurisdictional and watershed boundaries while reflecting community identities.
The southern boundary of the planning area is a natural one, a watershed divide that also marks the difference between the increasingly residential land use pattern of the Sonoita-Elgin area and the less populous San Rafael Valley. There was discussion of the appropriate western boundary. The Sonoita-Elgin area shares many issues with the Town of Patagonia, but there are also significant differences between the communities. Recognizing that the people of Patagonia, through their own locally-initiated process, must develop a plan appropriate to their town, our planning area extends west only to Casa Blanca Canyon.
Land use issues in adjacent parts of Cochise and Pima Counties are similar, but our planning area is limited to Santa Cruz County for jurisdictional reasons.
While the planning area mapped above follows jurisdictional and watershed
boundaries and reflects community identities, it is, unfortunately, not an
area for which there are separate population, housing, economic, or tax
data. Therefore, unless otherwise noted, the data presented in this plan
are for the Elgin Elementary School District. The school district has
slightly different boundaries, but essentially the same population and
land use pattern as the planning area.
| Preface | Chapter Two The Planning Process |
| Table of Contents |
Sonoita Crossroads Community Forum
P.O. Box 1274
Sonoita, AZ 85637
© 2002 Sonoita Crossroads Community Forum